(Warning: Spoilers ahead.)
“This is my villain origin story” is a lighthearted meme to show dissatisfaction: maybe a fave was snubbed during award season, or you didn’t score tickets to a concert. Sofia Falcone (Cristin Milioti) takes a more literal route down a darker path in this week’s standout episode ofThe Penguin, which reveals her character’s ticking backstory.
The HBO spinoff of The Batman detonated bombshells galore Sunday night, with flashbacks revealing the real identity of The Hangman, how Sofia found herself locked up in Arkham Asylum for a decade, and Oz’s (Colin Farrell) role in Sofia’s twisted fate. Not only that, but we find out why Oz left Sofia stranded last week. As if that wasn’t enough, Sofia unleashes a fatal power play that leaves most of her family dead. Milioti makes every single second of the episode count. Joker 2, who?
In the first three episodes of The Penguin, Milioti, as recently freed convicted serial killer Sofia (who the tabloids branded “The Hangman”), pulls focus whenever she is on screen. So it feels right that Farrell’s Oz takes a back seat in the Sofia-centric “Cent’Anni.” Or rather, we see his origin as Sofia’s driver and how this sowed the seeds of betrayal that resulted in her Arkham Asylum sojourn.
Only moments after telling Sofia, who is the daughter of his now-deceased employer, she could trust him, Oz deceives her for the second time. Third, if you include him killing Sofia’s beloved brother Alberto (Michael Zegen). Answering a question left from last week’s episode, we see Sofia learn that Oz pulled the trigger—hence why Oz ditched her. When the now-injured Sofia passes out, it sends us spinning back to her Mafia princess era, giving Milioti a chance to dig into her character’s perfect-manicure past.
Yes, in this flashback, Sofia has coiffed hair, demure eyeliner, and conservative attire. Everything about her mannerisms points to a life of privilege. Sure, personal tragedy (including finding her mother’s dead body after an apparent suicide) is traumatic, but Sofia’s day-to-day existence has little friction until a journalist upends her worldview.
We’ve seen Milioti play countless charismatic roles serving duality, whether as a guest star like Abby in 30 Rock (aka “I’m a very sexy baby”) or headlining Peacock’s criminally underseen The Resort, in which a time-bending mystery provides an escape hatch for grief. In Palm Springs, her energy matches co-star Andy Samberg’s goofy yet grounded depiction of yearning for connections. In the unforgettable Season 1 standalone episode of Mythic Quest, Milioti and Jake Johnson play a couple across two decades.
Milioti is equally electrifying playing opposite Farrell. Their dynamic is elastic. In flashbacks, Sofia pities him, imploring her brother not to call Oz the Penguin. But as soon as Oz tells her why she shouldn’t be meeting with a journalist investigating deaths connected to her father, Sofia reverts to a cold tone. Oz craves respect, and by talking to him like the help, Sofia seals her fate.
Even as Sofia defends her father Carmine (Mark Strong) to journalist Summer Gleeson (Nadine Malouf), doubt registers in her voice and eyes. Summer suggests multiple women who hung themselves were actually murdered by Carmine. The marks on the victims’ hands look like the ones Sofia saw on her mother. When her father offers Sofia the keys to the crime kingdom (because her brother is a screw-up), this dream of getting Daddy’s ultimate love and approval is undone by the knowledge that he probably killed her mom.
In a split second, she goes from wide-eyed happiness to fighting back tears, with the old wound of her mother’s death now open again. Actors who can use tears like different instruments in an orchestra don’t get enough attention. Throughout this episode, Miloiti plays her ducts like a conductor: pooling in her eyes, smeared on her face, and a single droplet down her cheek.
Waterworks of desperation take hold after Oz tells Carmine that Sofia met with a journalist: Her father pulls the disappointed card and sends Sofia packing from his birthday party. On the way home, Sofia (clad in a floral brat-green party dress) is arrested for the murder of Summer and the other women she was investigating, earning the Hangman moniker. Milioti’s wide eyes speak louder than her vocal protests as disbelief courses through her body as she is taken to Arkham Asylum.
A montage of electroconvulsive treatments and Sofia unraveling in her cell depicts the passage of six months before her trial date. Of course, there will not be a trial and Sofia reacts to this news with poise. Okay, she bashes in the head of a fellow inmate in the mess hall. “I told you I’m f—ing innocent,” Sofia screams with blood splatter across her face. It is one of several deeply dark bittersweet flourishes that Milioti expertly deploys.
Back in the present, rather than get on the plane to Sicily as her family demands, Sofia’s fresh start involves proving that Arkham did not break her. Pairing heartbreak, pain, and rage with dramatic eyeliner, shaggy bangs, and a plunging chartreuse gown (costume designer Helen Huang draws a color link to the dress Sofia was arrested in) is a bold look for revenge. Innocence is a recurring theme in The Penguin, and while Sofia isn’t the Hangman, she is about to up her body count with a Falcone family massacre.
Saving her cousin’s young daughter and Johnny Vitti (Michael Kelly)—for reasons that are as yet unclear—Sofia gases everyone else to death in their sleep. Dancing and skipping around the house, going from room to room in the aftermath, still wearing her glamorous dress (now accessorized with a gas mask) makes her worthy of the many that have come before. In a world of Gotham’s many monsters, Milioti as Sofia has earned that villain crown.
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